One of my horses has the same thing. He gets itchy spots on his belly and rubs back and forth on the ground to scratch himself. He rubs the hair off and then abrades the skin. The first time I saw him do this I was horrified because I thought he couldn’t get up. Doesn’t matter what I put on him–fly spray, Desitin, antibiotic ointment–he still rubs it off. A bath with iodine/aloe vera soap seems to help.
The belly of my horse cleared up, so seems it wasn’t the fly spray but something else. Maybe he had rolled in ants?
I’ve got one who gets raw patches on her belly. It’s the gnats. The raw patches precede her rubbing her belly on the ground.
Coating it all with zinc oxide clears up the raw stuff. Hydroxyzine seems to be doing a (slightly) better job at reducing her itchy reaction vs zyrtec. We’ll probably try allergy shots once we get through the summer season. Sigh.
